Data transmission and rendering techniques by a device via a network

ABSTRACT

A technique is disclosed for generating formatted information for display on a computing device. The computing device may be configured to include an interface for communicating with a server computing device. A request is sent from the computing device to the server. According to one embodiment, the request may correspond to an HTTP request for information relating to a specific HTML page. A response is then received from the server. According to one embodiment, the response includes response information comprising embedded instructions and data. The embedded instructions may include instructions for using the data to generate formatted markup information for display on the computing device. The embedded instructions are then executed on the data to thereby generate formatted markup information for display on the computing device. According to a specific embodiment, the formatted markup information corresponds to HTML data to be rendered for display on the computing device.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/925,669, filed Oct. 27, 2010, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,601,365, entitled:“Data Transmission and Rendering Techniques Implemented Over a ClientServer System,” which is incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety for all purposes, and which application is a continuation ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/378,643, filed Feb. 17, 2009, nowU.S. Pat. No. 7,853,870, entitled: “Data Transmission And RenderingTechniques Implemented Over A Client-Server System,” which isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes, andwhich application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/821,307, filed Jun. 22, 2007, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,493,554, entitled:“Data Transmission And Rendering Techniques Implemented Over AClient-Server System,” which is incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety for all purposes, and which application is a continuation ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/792,400, filed Feb. 22, 2001, nowU.S. Pat. No. 7,240,283, entitled: “Data Transmission and RenderingTechniques Implemented Over A Client-Server System,” which isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes, andwhich application claims priority under 35 USC 119(e) from U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 60/247,392 filed Nov. 10, 2000,entitled: “Electronic Commerce Enabled Delivery System and Method,” theentirety of which is incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.The present application also relates to U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/568,603, filed on May 10, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,177,825,entitled: “Integrated System for Ordering, Fulfillment, and Delivery ofConsumer Products using a Data Network,” which is incorporated herein byreference in its entirety for all purposes.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to data networks, and morespecifically to data transmission and rendering techniques to beimplemented in a client-server system.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a typical client-server system 100,wherein the client device 102 and the server device 106 communicate witheach other via the Internet 104.

In most Internet-based client-server systems, when a client process 102desires specific information from a remote server (such as, for example,a web page), the client process transmits an HTTP request to the server106 (via Internet 104), and the server responds by transmitting an HTTPresponse to the client which includes HTML data. A browser on the clientmachine renders the HTML data and displays it to the user in the form ofan HTML (i.e. web) page. This entire process may be initiated by theuser at the click of a button, such as, for example, by clicking a mousebutton on a URL link. However, the desired information will typicallynot be displayed instantaneously. Rather, the user typically is requiredto wait a time interval (referred to as the end-user experiencedresponse time) until the desired information is retrieved from theserver system and displayed on the client machine. This delay isundesirable. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that it is generallydesirable to reduce the end-user experienced response time.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to different embodiments of the present invention, a methodand computer program product are disclosed for generating formattedinformation for display on a computer system. The computer system may beconfigured to include at least one interface for communicating with aserver computer system. A request is sent from the computer system tothe server system. According to one embodiment, the request maycorrespond to an HTTP request for information relating to a specificHTML page or web page. A response is then received from the serversystem. According to one embodiment, the response includes responseinformation comprising embedded instructions and data. The embeddedinstructions may include instructions for using the data to generateformatted markup information for display on the computer system. Theembedded instructions are then executed on the data to thereby generateformatted markup information for display on the computer system.According to a specific embodiment, the formatted markup informationcorresponds to HTML data to be rendered for display on the computersystem.

Other embodiments are directed to a method and computer program productfor generating formatted information for display on a computer system.The computer system may be configured to include at least one interfacefor communicating with a server computer system. A request for desiredinformation is received from the computer system. According to oneembodiment, the request may correspond to an HTTP request forinformation relating to a specific HTML page or web page. A response isthen sent to the computer system. According to one embodiment, theresponse includes response information comprising embedded instructionsand data. The embedded instructions may include instructions for usingthe data to generate formatted markup information for display on thecomputer system. According to a specific embodiment, the formattedmarkup information corresponds to HTML data to be rendered for displayon the computer system.

An alternate embodiment of the present invention is directed to a systemfor generating formatted information for display on a computer system.The system comprises at least one CPU, memory, and at least oneinterface for communicating with a server computer system. The systemmay be configured to send a request to the server system via the atleast one interface. According to one embodiment, the request maycorrespond to an HTTP request for information relating to a specificHTML page or web page. The system may further be configured to receive aresponse from the server system, wherein the response includes responseinformation comprising embedded instructions and data. The embeddedinstructions may include instructions for using the data to generateformatted markup information for display on the computer system. Thesystem may be further configured to execute the embedded instructions onthe data to thereby generate formatted markup information for display onthe computer system. According to a specific embodiment, the formattedmarkup information corresponds to HTML data to be rendered for displayon the computer system.

Another embodiment of the present invention is directed to a system forgenerating formatted information for display on a computer system. Thesystem comprises at least one CPU, memory, and at least one interfacefor communicating with a client computer system. The system may beconfigured to receive a request for desired information from the clientcomputer. According to one embodiment, the request may correspond to anHTTP request for information relating to a specific HTML page or webpage. The system may further be configured or designed to send aresponse to the client computer, wherein the response includes responseinformation comprising embedded instructions and data. The embeddedinstructions may include instructions for using the data to generateformatted markup information for display on the client system. Accordingto a specific embodiment, the formatted markup information correspondsto HTML data to be rendered for display on the client system.

Additional objects, features and advantages of the various aspects ofthe present invention will become apparent from the followingdescription of its preferred embodiments, which description should betaken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a conventional client-server system 100.

FIG. 2A shows an example of an HTML page which may be used to illustratethe data transmission and rendering techniques of the present invention.

FIG. 2B shows an example of conventional HTML source code which may beprovided by a conventional server to a conventional client device inresponse to an HTTP request.

FIG. 2C illustrates a specific embodiment of the source code which maybe provided by a server to a client device in accordance with a specificembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows a flow diagram illustrating how information is transmittedbetween a client system and a server system in accordance with aspecific embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 shows a network device 60 suitable for implementing the datatransmission and rendering techniques of the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

This application describes various features associated with datatransmission and rendering techniques to be implemented in aclient-server system. It will be appreciated, therefore, that the datatransmission and rendering techniques described in this applicationmerely define specific embodiments of the data transmission andrendering techniques of the present invention. Alternate embodiments ofthe data transmission and rendering techniques of the present inventionmay be derived by modifying various features of the specific embodimentdescribed herein. Such modifications will be apparent to one havingordinary skill in the art.

As described previously in the Background Section of this application,it is generally desirable to reduce the end-user experienced responsetime as much as possible. In this regard, it will be appreciated that acombination of different factors may contribute to the overall end-userexperienced response time, such as, for example, the server responsetime, communication latency, download time, client processing speed,etc. The server response time indicates how quickly a server is able torespond to a particular request, such as, for example, an HTTP request.The communication latency represents the start up costs associated withthe connection between the client and the server. Typically, each timethe user clicks on a particular link in a web browser application, aconnection to a server is established, which incurs another latencyperiod. The client processing speed corresponds to how quickly theclient (or browser machine) is able to render the page as it receivesit. The download time represents an amount of time that it takes todownload a requested page once the request has been received andprocessed by the server. This value may be significantly affected by theconnection speed that has been established between the client and theserver.

With the limited connection speeds that are typically establishedbetween the client and the server, one of the more significant factorsin the end-user experienced response time is the size of the page beingdownloaded. Thus, it will be appreciated that, by reducing the amount ofbytes to be downloaded from the server process, the end-user experiencedresponse time may also be reduced.

FIG. 2A shows an example of an HTML page which may be used to illustratethe data transmission and rendering techniques of the present invention.The HTML page 200 of FIG. 2A represents the web page which is displayedto a user of the client device 102. In the example of FIG. 2A, it isassumed that the web page 200 represents a phone book page whichincludes personalized contact information specific to that user. Forexample, a first entry 202 on page 200 provides personalized informationfor a contact named Bryan. A second entry 204 on page 200 providespersonalized information for a contact named Dean. A third entry 206 onpage 200 provides personalized information for a contact named Ajit. Afourth entry 208 on page 200 provides personalized information for acontact named Narasimha.

FIG. 2B shows an example of conventional HTML source code which may beprovided by the server 106 to the client device 102, and subsequentlyused by a conventional web browser (such as, for example, NetscapeNavigator or Internet Explorer) on the client device for rendering theweb page 200. As illustrated in FIG. 2B, each entry 212, 214, 216 and218 in the HTML source code corresponds to a respective entry 202, 204,206, 208 displayed on web page 200. Moreover, it will be appreciatedthat each character of text which is displayed on the web page 200 isincluded in the HTML source code of FIG. 2B.

FIG. 2C illustrates a specific embodiment of modified source code whichmay be provided by the server 106 to the client device 102, andsubsequently used for rendering the HTML page 200 in accordance with aspecific embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2C, thesource code includes an embedded instruction portion 222 and an embeddeddata portion 224. In the example of FIG. 2C, it is assumed that theembedded instruction portion 222 is implemented using a scriptinglanguage such as, for example, JavaScript, and that the client webbrowser is capable of executing the embedded instructions. When comparedto the source code of FIG. 2B, it can be seen at the source code of FIG.2C includes fewer bytes of information. For example, it can be seen thatthe characters “If you want to send a fax, please use” are repeated four(4) times in FIG. 2B, but are included only once in FIG. 2C. The dataportion 224 includes all the customized data which will eventually berendered into customized HTML data.

It will be appreciated that the actual number of bytes to be transferredfrom the server 106 to the client device 102 in FIG. 2B is significantlygreater than that of FIG. 2C. More specifically, the byte size of thedata represented by FIG. 2B is 1,730 bytes, whereas the byte size of thedata represented by FIG. 2C is 960 bytes.

Thus, according to at least one embodiment of the present invention,rather than the server 106 sending the entire HTML source code (as shownin FIG. 2B) to the client machine 102, the server may transmit embeddedinstructions and data (as shown in FIG. 2C) to the client machine,wherein the embedded instructions and data are processed at the clientmachine to thereby generate HTML data to be rendered for displaying to auser.

FIG. 3 shows a flow diagram illustrating how information is transmittedbetween a client system 102 and a server system 106 in accordance with aspecific embodiment of the present invention. It will be appreciatedthat the flow diagram of FIG. 3 merely represents an example of aspecific embodiment of how the technique of the present invention may beused to reduce the amount of actual bytes transferred from a serverdevice to a client device.

Referring to FIG. 3, it is initially assumed that the client transmits(1) an HTTP request to the server 106. For purposes of illustration, itis assumed that the HTTP request corresponds to a request to retrieveweb page 200 of FIG. 2A. The server responds (2) by transmitting an HTTPresponse to the client machine. According to a specific embodiment, theHTTP response includes embedded instructions and data such as thatshown, for example in FIG. 2C. According to a specific implementation,the embedded data may be in ASCII text format. The embedded data mayalso be in other forms, such as, for example, Unicode. Additionally,according to specific embodiments, the embedded instructions maycorrespond to scripting language which can be interpreted by a browseror other rendering program, or alternatively, may correspond toexecutable code, such as, for example, a plug-in, which may be executedon at the client system 102. In the example of FIG. 3, it is assumedthat the embedded instructions are implemented using JavaScript.

Upon receiving the HTTP response, the client machine may execute (3) theJavaScript on the data provided in the HTTP response to thereby generateHTML code for rendering on the client machine. According to a specificembodiment, this action may be performed by a browser application thathas been configured or designed to interpret scripting instructionlanguage such as, for example, JavaScript or JSCRIPT. Alternatively, theembedded instructions may correspond to executable code which isexecuted on the client system using the data from the HTTP response togenerate the HTML code. A web browser or other rendering program on theclient machine may than use the generated HTML code to render (4) theHTML page to be displayed on the client machine's display device.

It will be appreciated that, according to a specific embodiment of thepresent invention, the response transmitted from the server 106 to theclient system 102 may not always include both embedded instructions andembedded data. In one implementation, the particular request transmittedby the client system to the server may be used by the server determinewhether the response to the client should include only data, or bothdata and instructions.

By way of illustration, it is assumed that the server 106 has alreadytransmitted a first response to client 102 which includes embeddedinstructions 222 and data 224 as shown in FIG. 2C. Further, it isassumed that a browser program has executed the instructions 222 on thedata 224 to generate HTML data, which the browser program then renderedfor display as shown in FIG. 2A. Additionally, in this example, it isassumed that the rendered page includes two additional links (notillustrated in FIG. 2A). The first link is displayed as “VIEW CALENDAR”,and the second link is displayed as “NEXT PAGE”. If the user clicks onthe NEXT PAGE link, the client system will send a request to the serverto retrieve the next page of contact information. When the serverreceives this request, it may determine from the request that it needonly send the data portion relating to the next page of contactinformation. The client system has previously received the embeddedinstructions 222 for rendering the next page data. Thus, when the clientsystem subsequently receives a response from the server which includesthe next page data portion (but does not include the embeddedinstructions portion), the client machine may execute the previouslyreceived instructions 222 on the newly received data to thereby renderthe next page of contact information for display to the user.

Alternatively, if the user clicks on the VIEW CALENDAR link, the clientsystem will send a request to the server to retrieve calendarinformation (which is assumed to be displayed using a different formatthan that shown in FIG. 2A). When the server receives this request, itmay determine from the request that it needs to send both new data (i.e.calendar data) and new instructions (for rendering the calendar data) tothe client system. Upon receiving the response from the server, theclient system may then execute new instructions on the calendar data tothereby generate HTML data to be rendered for display to the user.

From the above description, it will be appreciated that the datatransmission and rendering techniques of the present invention may beused to reduce the amount of actual bytes transferred from a serversystem (e.g., 106, FIG. 1) to a client system (e.g., 102, FIG. 1) inresponse to a specific client request. In this way the technique of thepresent invention may significantly improve the end-user experiencedresponse time by reducing the amount of actual bytes which need to bereceived at the client machine, for example, during a singlerequest-response transaction. Moreover, it will be appreciated that thetechnique of the present invention may be utilized in environments whereconnection speed is a significant factor in the end-user experiencedresponse time.

Generally, the data transmission and rendering techniques of the presentinvention may be implemented on software and/or hardware. For example,they can be implemented in an operating system kernel, in a separateuser process, in a library package bound into network applications, on aspecially constructed machine, or on a network interface card. In aspecific embodiment of this invention, the technique of the presentinvention is implemented in software such as an operating system or inan application running on an operating system.

A software or software/hardware hybrid implementation of the datatransmission and rendering technique of this invention may beimplemented on a general-purpose programmable machine selectivelyactivated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in memory. Suchprogrammable machine may be a computer system or network device such asthat shown in FIG. 4 of the drawings. The network device may havemultiple network interfaces including, for example, frame relay,Ethernet, ISDN, etc. Specific examples of such a network device includerouters and servers. A general architecture for some of these machineswill appear from the description given below. In an alternativeembodiment, the data transmission and rendering technique of thisinvention may be implemented on a general-purpose network host machinesuch as a personal computer or workstation. Further, the invention maybe at least partially implemented on a card (e.g., an interface card)for a network device or a general-purpose computing device.

Referring now to FIG. 4, a network device 60 suitable for implementingthe data transmission and rendering techniques of the present inventionincludes a master central processing unit (CPU) 62, interfaces 68, and abus 67 (e.g., a PCI bus). When acting under the control of appropriatesoftware or firmware, the CPU 62 may be responsible for implementingspecific functions associated with the functions of a desired networkdevice. For example, when configured as a client network device, the CPU62 may be responsible for such tasks as transmitting and receivinginformation to and from other network devices, analyzing receivedinformation, executing JavaScript, generating HTML data using non-HTMLdata received from another network device, rendering HTML data fordisplay to a user, etc. The CPU 62 preferably accomplishes all thesefunctions under the control of software including an operating system(e.g., Windows NT), and any appropriate applications software.

CPU 62 may include one or more processors 63 such as a processor fromthe Motorola family of microprocessors or the MIPS family ofmicroprocessors. In an alternative embodiment, processor 63 is speciallydesigned hardware for controlling the operations of network device 60.In a specific embodiment, a memory 61 (such as non-volatile RAM and/orROM) also forms part of CPU 62. However, there are many different waysin which memory could be coupled to the system. Memory block 61 may beused for a variety of purposes such as, for example, caching and/orstoring data, programming instructions, etc.

The interfaces 68 are typically provided as interface cards (sometimesreferred to as “line cards”). Generally, they control the sending andreceiving of data packets over the network and sometimes support otherperipherals used with the network device 60. Among the interfaces thatmay be provided are Ethernet interfaces, frame relay interfaces, cableinterfaces, DSL interfaces, token ring interfaces, and the like. Inaddition, various very high-speed interfaces may be provided such asfast Ethernet interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, ATM interfaces,HSSI interfaces, POS interfaces, FDDI interfaces and the like.Generally, these interfaces may include ports appropriate forcommunication with the appropriate media. In some cases, they may alsoinclude an independent processor and, in some instances, volatile RAM.The independent processors may control such communications intensivetasks as packet switching, media control and management. By providingseparate processors for the communications intensive tasks, theseinterfaces allow the master microprocessor 62 to efficiently performrouting computations, network diagnostics, security functions, etc.

Although the system shown in FIG. 4 illustrates one specific networkdevice of the present invention, it is by no means the only networkdevice architecture on which the present invention can be implemented.For example, an architecture having a single processor that handlescommunications as well as routing computations, etc. is often used.Further, other types of interfaces and media could also be used with thenetwork device.

Regardless of network device's configuration, it may employ one or morememories or memory modules (such as, for example, memory block 65)configured to store data, program instructions for the general-purposenetwork operations and/or other information relating to thefunctionality of the data transmission and rendering techniquesdescribed herein. The program instructions may control the operation ofan operating system and/or one or more applications, for example. Thememory or memories may also be configured to include data structureswhich store data received from other network devices, locally generatedHTML data, rendered HTML pages, etc.

Because such information and program instructions may be employed toimplement the systems/methods described herein, the present inventionrelates to machine readable media that include program instructions,state information, etc. for performing various operations describedherein. Examples of machine-readable media include, but are not limitedto, magnetic storage media such as hard disks, floppy disks, andmagnetic tape; optical media such as CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical mediasuch as floptical disks; and hardware devices that are speciallyconfigured to store and perform program instructions, such as read-onlymemory devices (ROM) and random access memory (RAM). The invention mayalso be embodied in transmission media such as a carrier wave travellingover an appropriate medium such as airwaves, optical lines, electriclines, etc. Examples of program instructions include both machine code,such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher level codethat may be executed by the computer using an interpreter.

Although several preferred embodiments of this invention have beendescribed in detail herein with reference to the accompanying drawings,it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to theseprecise embodiments, and at various changes and modifications may beeffected therein by one skilled in the art without departing from thescope of spirit of the invention as described herein.

We claim:
 1. A first computing device comprising: a display; a userinterface configured to receive a first request for a first set ofstructured information to be displayed on the display; a networkinterface configured to transmit information regarding the first requestto a second computing device via a network, and to receive a firstresponse from the second computing device responsive to the firstrequest, the first response including instructions and a first set ofdata; and a processor configured to generate at least a portion of thefirst set of structured information by executing at least a portion ofthe instructions on at least a portion of the first set of data, withthe byte size of the at least a portion of the instructions and the atleast a portion of the first set of data together being less than thebyte size of the at least a portion of the first set of structuredinformation being generated for display, wherein the user interfacesubsequently is configured to receive a second request for a second setof structured information to be displayed on the display, wherein thenetwork interface is configured to transmit information regarding thesecond request to the second computing device via the network, and toreceive a second response from the second computing device responsive tothe second request, the second response including a second set of data,and wherein the processor is configured to generate at least a portionof the second set of structured information for display by executing atleast a portion of the instructions on at least a portion of the secondset of data, wherein the at least a portion of the second set ofstructured information is generated for display without having toreceive the instructions in the second response since such instructionswere previously received in the first response.
 2. The first computingdevice as recited in claim 1, wherein the network interface isconfigured to transmit information regarding the first request to thesecond computing device via the Internet.
 3. The first computing deviceas recited in claim 1, wherein the first request is received via aclicking operation at the user interface.
 4. The first computing deviceas recited in claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the instructionsare provided in a scripting language.
 5. The first computing device asrecited in claim 4, wherein the scripting language is JavaScript.
 6. Thefirst computing device as recited in claim 1, wherein at least a portionof the instructions are executed by a program in the first computingdevice.
 7. The first computing device as recited in claim 6, wherein theprogram is a browser.
 8. The first computing device as recited in claim1, wherein the information regarding the first request is configured tobe transmitted in a wireless manner.
 9. The first computing device asrecited in claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the first set ofstructured information is in HTML.
 10. The first computing device asrecited in claim 1, wherein the first set of structured informationincludes information regarding a number of products available to beordered using the first computing device.
 11. A first computing devicecomprising: a network interface configured to receive, via a network,information regarding a first request for a first set of structuredinformation from a second computing device to be displayed on a displayof the second computing device; and a processor configured to produce afirst response for the first request, with the first response includinginstructions and a first set of data, wherein the network interface isconfigured to transmit the first response to the second computing devicevia the network to allow generating at least a portion of the first setof structured information by executing at least a portion of theinstructions on at least a portion of the first set of data, with thebyte size of the at least a portion of the instructions and the at leasta portion of the first set of data together being less than the bytesize of the at least a portion of the first set of structuredinformation being generated for display at the second computing device,wherein the network interface subsequently is configured to receive, viathe network, information regarding a second request for a second set ofstructured information from the second computing device to be displayedon the display of the second computing device, wherein the processor isconfigured to produce a second response for the second computing deviceresponsive to the second request, with the second response including asecond set of data, and wherein the network interface is configured totransmit the second response to the second computing device via thenetwork to allow generating at least a portion of the second set ofstructured information for display by executing at least a portion ofthe instructions on at least a portion of the second set of data,wherein the at least a portion of the second set of structuredinformation is generated for display at the second computing devicewithout having to receive the instructions in the second response sincesuch instructions were previously received in the first response. 12.The first computing device as recited in claim 11, wherein the networkinterface is configured to receive, via the Internet, informationregarding the first request for the first set of structured informationfrom the second computing device.
 13. The first computing device asrecited in claim 11, wherein at least a portion of the instructions areprovided in a scripting language.
 14. The first computing device asrecited in claim 13, wherein the scripting language is JavaScript. 15.The first computing device as recited in claim 11, wherein at least aportion of the instructions are allowed to be executed by a program inthe second computing device.
 16. The first computing device as recitedin claim 15, wherein the program is a browser.
 17. The first computingdevice as recited in claim 11, wherein the first response is configuredto be transmitted in a wireless manner.
 18. The first computing deviceas recited in claim 11, wherein at least a portion of the first set ofstructured information is in HTML.
 19. The first computing device asrecited in claim 11, wherein the first set of structured informationincludes information regarding a number of products provided by thefirst computing device and available to be ordered.